maybe it's just me, but everybody saying that is usually the people who advocate/ignore horrendous shit in the first place.

they keep saying "I miss the days when people could disagree about politics and stay friends"

and I keep thinking, "I miss the days when 'disagree about politics' didn't equate to 'I don't care about fascism' or 'I am a fascist myself', and those were probably the days when people 'disagreed about politics' but stayed friends."

@sydneyfalkIt's hard to distinguish between "I don't want to talk about politics" meaning "I don't care about other people's suffering" and "I don't want to talk about politics" meaning "Let's wait to talk about politics until my ulcer has calmed down because the stress of worrying about people's suffering is killing me swiftly".

At least, it's hard in the absence of other evidence. (Like, with a relative stranger.)

This is kind of the problem -- if someone's not willing to tell you about their political views, sometimes it's because they're hoping to personalize themselves before dropping the bomb-fact of their apathy or viciousness.

And sometimes it's because they're sick to death of those things, horrified, aghast.

But I don't trust "I don't want to talk about politics" if it's the ONLY thing someone says about politics these days. :\

@sydneyfalk@enkiv2 was discussing this in context of Brexit/UK politics earlier with folk from DE. A lot of these so-called "apolitical" types are ashamed because they *know* there is hipocrisy - they were happy to take the cheap holiday to Ibiza and bring back 400 cigarettes with less tax but pissed off that they must compete with EU workers more qualified than they are for a dwindling number of jobs as the other part of the "free trade/movement" deal.

@vfrmedia@sydneyfalkThis feeds into the whole "virtue signaling" thing. Being too embarrassed to say "I don't care about group X", they instead say "everyone who claims to care about group X is lying".

(Of course, if that were true it would probably be a good thing: getting people to act indistinguishably from actually caring would improve life in all sorts of ways whether or not they meant it!)

@sydneyfalk@enkiv2 I'd go as far as to say "too cowardly". I grew up as teen in the 1980s and, fash were at least honest then; they looked like typical "skinhead" didn't try to dress like hipsters, listen to the same music as yourself, take drugs (many heavily anti drugs and even booze as it reduced strength for fighting). only good thing about todays rightwingers is w/o guns (not allowed in UK) or other weapons they are not as physically strong as old times.

on a lighter note (and I think this happens across Nothern Europe) as my peer group gets older, on rare occasions I go to music/social events I regularly end up having friendly conversations over drinks with large built bald guys, who are are great pains to point out "please don't think I am a racist skinhead type". I am *not*. I totally hate racism and was punk/antifa in 80s, it was just that I went bald in my 20s 😁